AGRIPPINA

AGRIPPINA, station in the line of beacons kindled during the period of the Second Temple, northward from the Mount of Olives to announce the time for reciting blessings during the new moon period: "… from Sarteba to Agrippina and from Agrippina to Hauran…" (RH 2:4). Gropina, the usual reading found in the Mishnah, is a corruption of the name. It is probable that Agrippina was included in the network of fortifications erected by Josephus in 66–67 C.E. Dalman suggested identifying Agrippina with the ruins of Kawkab al-Hawaʾ (now Kokhav ha-Yarden, the Crusader Belvoir) in the Beth-Shean district, 975 ft. (297 m.) high. Impressive ruins of the Crusader castle of Belvoir, built in the 12th century by the order of Knights Hospitallers and captured by Saladin in 1189, have been restored by the Israel Parks Authority. Stones used for the construction of the fortress were taken from various sources, including dismantled ancient buildings from the Byzantine period. One of these stones probably came from a synagogue and it has a carved depiction of a seven-branched menorah between two arches (aediculae) and an Aramaic dedicatory inscription. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Conder-Kitchener, 2 (1882), 117; Dalman, in PJB, 18–19 (1923), 43ff.; Avi-Yonah, in: I-EJ. 3 (1953), 95; J. Schwartz, Tevu'ot ha-Areẓ (19003). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Y. Tsafrir, L. Di Segni, and J. Green, Tabula Imperii Romani. Iudaea – Palaestina. Maps and Gazetteer. (1994), 168–69. (Michael Avi-Yonah / Shimon Gibson (2nd ed.)